J. S. Bach and the Oratorio Tradition (review)

Oratorio is a term readily associated with Handel, the English version of which he is credited with inventing. In Bach’s case, many might consider the Christmas Oratorio to be his only significant contribution to the genre, but the Easter and Ascension Oratorios (the latter often known merely as ‘Cantata 11’) are also worthy of attention. Moreover, the two surviving Passions conform to the narrative definition of oratorio even if they were not necessarily termed oratorios in Bach’s environment. Seeing all Bach’s sacred narrative works together inevitably invites comparison with his oft-neglected secular works, many of which are operas in all but name (and staging). In the current volume—the eighth in a distinguished series loosely associated with the work of the American Bach Society—several authors refer to the Lexicon (1732) by Bach’s relative, J. G. Walther, in which ‘Oratorium’ is defined specifically as a ‘sacred opera’. Given the title of this new study, we might expect some history of the oratorio genre and perhaps a close examination of its relation to opera. Although some writers do refer to opera (Christoph Wolff) and others to historical precedents (Kerala J. Synder’s study of Buxtehude’s Abendmusiken), the strength of the collection perhaps lies in its diversity of approaches rather than in a systematic examination of the genre. Indeed, it is most productive when it reveals dichotomies or outright oppositions between views of Bach’s work.

Christoph Wolff, undoubtedly the world figurehead of Bach scholarship, sets the scene with his thesis that Bach designed his three named oratorios as a trilogy in the 1730s. These differ from the passions of the 1720s in their heavy reliance on secular originals (thus rendering the music concerned less ephemeral). Wolff ’s key point is that Bach turns operatic pieces into devotional ones (thus fulfilling his pledge on taking office to inspire devotion and not provide music that was too operatic). Exemplary of this process is the history of the Easter Oratorio, by which the mythological characters of the secular original become biblical characters in the Easter cantata of 1725 (Peter, John, and the two Marys), and, by the 1730s (when Bach was constructing his trilogy), these are stripped of their dramatic, personal roles altogether. According to Wolff, the ‘choir gallery, once a quasi-operatic stage for the Easter cantata, returned to its proper place as a venue for musical sermons’ (p. 9).

The notion of Bach as musical preacher is not, in itself, controversial, and Eric Chafe’s detailed closing essay provides a stimulating theological reading of the Ascension Oratorio. As in most of his previous studies of Bach, he takes tonality as the primary allegorical method by which the theological resonances of the text are established. Most important in this respect is the way Bach modulates towards the flat side of D major (the tonic being the perspective from ‘above’, as it were). The first aria, in A minor, relates to the ‘literal physical response of sorrow’ at Jesus’s departure, while the second in G major relates to the ‘correct’ emotion of joy at his ascension and its fulfilment of a larger plan (p. 144). Similarly, the final chorale, in B minor, is embedded in a D major framework, a ‘tonal dualism invoking the idea of God’s two kingdoms and the awaiting of the faithful for fulfillment in the one above’ (p. 145). This final point would perhaps be more convincing if Bach had been the composer of the chorale melody too, but there are certainly other examples of Bach using contrasting modes for chorales and the surrounding material (e.g. the opening of the St Matthew Passion and the end of the Christmas Oratorio). In all, Chafe’s points are, paradoxically, strongest when they are presented with some circumspection (the use of the expression ‘as if ’ is particularly welcome in this regard)—they are possibilities that a theologically informed...